As I write this, our country is in the middle of a government shutdown where huge numbers of people are about to lose their SNAP benefits. Also, health insurance benefits are about to increase dramatically, mine included. I’m trying to wrap my mind around the implications of all that, while trying to sort through my options for steadier employment that won’t interfere with my Art Teacher job or my health. I have a lot of leads and a lot of thoughts.

So, today I’m going to share an anecdote from the summer of 2011. Obviously.

One day, I went on a walk in Tower Grove Park. It was a hot and sunny, heat-advisory sort of afternoon, and not many people were out. I liked having the place mostly to myself and kept to the shadier parts of the park. Utterly lost in thought, I emerged from a narrow path thickly lined with shrubbery to find myself completely startled by a man running.

Now, I was so in my head, I would have been startled to see anyone at the moment. A close friend, my mother, even a squirrel. This particular man happened to be black and very fit. My impression at the time, based on the way he held his very muscular arms while running, was that he could be a boxer. And when I gasped in startled surprise, I also startled him.

In response, he immediately spoke and made calming gestures to show he wasn’t a threat. I always knew he wasn’t. I was just a flaky lady who lived in my head, spazzing out a little while being forced back into reality. I tried to convey that I was just startled by the presence of anyone and knew he was fine, but I was so embarrassed, I left pretty quickly.

Afterward, and still to this day, I was really struck by how quickly he assumed I was afraid of him. I’ve wondered how other white women have reacted to him in the past when, to me, he seemed like a cool guy. Even before the calming gestures. One of the most illuminating parts for me is that right after it happened, when I shared it with a couple of friends, they were reluctant to believe that he was wary of me being afraid of him. They were sure there had to be other explanations. Ones that fit their worldview.

That experience has played a key role in helping me hear other people as I’ve learned more about prejudice, racism, and other hard things. It’s important to take the story of another’s experience seriously. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Eye-witness testimony is unreliable, and facts can get skewed. However, that happens because emotional impressions are strong, and those don’t come from nowhere. Additionally, when thousands and millions of people are telling the same stories, that adds a powerful level of validity.
​
Right now, the prominent stories aren’t about white women overreacting in parks. They’re about people worried about keeping access to food, jobs, education, and healthcare. Sounds pretty valid to me.

Since August of this year, I’ve been ghosted twice. First, by a close professional relationship. More recently, by someone I believe (or believed?) to be a friend. I feel both cases are just kind of those confusing things that happen, but happening twice is worrisome.

​​Going chronologically, I stopped hearing from my business colleagues around two months ago. I was 1/3 of the leadership team for a startup company. I was naturally on the edge of a lot of communication because the other two were in the same location, while I was remote. Sometimes, and with increasing frequency, it felt like I was left out intentionally. This was addressed a few times – as recently as July – with some improvements, but they never held. Keeping things very vague, this most recent silence coincided with a change in our website hosting service that caused me to lose access to my work email. I felt good about not reaching out to address this known problem.
 
Proceeding as if we are done feels like the natural path. While I really wanted us to succeed, I’ve been looking for a clear end to the limbo for a while. Now I’ve got it!

​The friend ghosting me is more…ugh. We'll call him Peter. I guess it happened the last Saturday in September, although I didn’t realize for several days more that that was the last time I’d heard from him. We usually text daily; mostly memes, songs, shenanigans at work, assorted nonsense like that. But he just stopped. It isn’t uncommon for Peter to skip a few days if he’s busy or something, but this was different. Then, I had that seizure (see the “Setbacks” portion of this post) and, after that, I didn’t have it in me to figure out what was going on with a grown man who’s incredibly eloquent and gifted with words, yet refusing to use them.
 
I really don’t know what happened. Two days earlier, we had a great night when our team won trivia. All I can think of is that in the final messages, he sent a video I didn’t love, and I made a stupid joke in response that didn’t land. In retrospect, I can see that situation striking nerves and leading to miscommunication.
 
Peter openly admits he’ll go out of his way to avoid conflict. While I’m not particularly confrontational, I absolutely know the benefits of facing and addressing unpleasant and difficult things. Many of the best and most important experiences of my life have come from facing the hard thing. (See the examples in this post, especially #4. Yes, this Peter is the Peter from #3.) I understand needing to work up the courage to face something, but I don’t understand making the intentional choice to miss out on that goodness.
 
My analytical side wants to delve into all of our interactions and fix things, but that is not for me to do. That’s taking on work that belongs to someone else. I’m only responsible for what I know. I think I will low-key reach out to him once I finish something I’m behind on completing. Peter knows I’m making it, and I am generally someone who finishes what I start. Anything beyond that is up to him.
 
Overall, I am okay. When it comes down to it, neither the personal nor professional ghostings surprise me, but I am incredibly letdown. These were all individuals I trusted and still do care about, but they have now chosen not to know me. The direct sting of bad news hurts, but this vague poison of avoidance harms…

Making space at the table is a common analogy for inclusivity, and, honestly, one I never gave much thought. To me, it seemed obvious. Of course, everyone should be welcome to the discussion of important decisions. I took it for granted that it was a table of infinite size, and thought it was silly that anyone would be excluded. If I imagined any table at all, it was similar to the one described towards the end of CS Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the incredibly long one loaded with a surplus of food for all.
 
The first time I gave any real consideration to the power dynamics of table space was while listening to an interview during the spicy times of Ferguson, MO, in 2014, after Michael Brown was shot. In it, the woman being interviewed pointed out that it’s one thing to get space at the table, but who built the table? Why won’t more white leaders accept invitations to black events and learn what’s already being done?
 
I feel naïve and ashamed to admit this, but it hadn’t even occurred to me that there could be more than one table. At the same time, it made perfect sense. Who built the table? It’s such a simple question. I started thinking about different stories and events I knew in the context of this reframing of the table metaphor. The person who “built the table” unquestionably has the balance of power in their favor. They get to set the rules and issue the invites. Tables have limited space and allow for exclusivity.

It also explains why a group with a powerful table would be resistant to accepting an invitation from another group. A real-life example of this also comes from Ferguson’s spicy times.
 
Michael Brown was shot in August, and the Grand Jury decision wasn’t made until the week of Thanksgiving. The entire space in between (and a while after) was full of tension. Understandably, folks were concerned about Halloween. It was proposed that the town sponsor a Trunk-or-Treat so the kids could have a safe and fun time. One respected Black Leader in the town reached out to the white Mayor and told him their community program had a well-established and well-attended Trunk-or-Treat and suggested they combine forces. The Mayor, who had a history of butting heads with this leader and was enjoying the attention of the national spotlight, declined. He chose instead to set up a separate town Trunk-or-Treat. I feel like it was at a competing time, but I can’t say that with confidence. However, I do know its attendees were predominantly white.
 
In other words, because the Mayor didn’t want to compromise and sit at another table for a minute, he missed the opportunity to help create a unifying event during a very divisive time.
 
My source? The wife of the Leader was one of my closest colleagues and a woman I respect immensely.
 
In conclusion, I’ve come to realize that’s why so many people in power ruin good things that don’t hurt them: they can’t stand other people having tables. If someone else has a table, then they have the ability to say I can’t join, and I can’t stand that.
 
Talk about insecurity.
​
I’ve been thinking about colonization and other invasions through the lens of this metaphor. True, it’s an oversimplification. But it’s also true that a family happily eating unique foods at a large table would piss off a fully selfish and insecure rich kid.
 
What is fascism but destroying other people’s tables?
​

It’s been a minute since a life and health update, here we go…
 
For some people, their seizure activity is connected to their menstrual cycle, and I appear to be one of them. This is because estrogen tends to make a seizure-friendly environment, while progesterone doesn’t. I don’t understand the biochemical reasons behind this, but in June I started taking progesterone.
 
It’s been interesting. Overall, I believe it is helping because I do seem to have fewer FAS (focal aware seizures). At the same time, it’s a hormone. There’s an adjustment.
 
Benefits I’ve experienced include being able to run more often and needing fewer naps. The downside is that the one or two times seizure activity made an appearance, it hit harder. More on that later.
 
Beginning in August, I agreed to teach Arts & Crafts one afternoon a week at the school I subbed at last year, Legacy Academy. It’s a lot of fun. I’ve always been crafty and included many arty aspects in the science projects I did with my kids back in StL. It would be fair to say that I am a natural embodiment of STEAM. It feels like both an intuitive step and a little WTF? We will soon be starting a lot of handy crafts that involve knot tying, using repurposed T-shirts as the string.

​I still sub there as well, and, somehow, became a track coach, too. This throws me more than the art. Even though I’ve run quite a bit, I’ve never been coached, or even run with other people. There are the 12 years of swimming, of course, and I can cross apply concepts, but with my unique situation, I feel somewhat out of my element. There’s a Fun-Run/5K on November 1st we’re getting ready for, and I do have something of a game plan with the other person helping me. At the same time, I look forward to reflecting on its completion.

On a completely different note, over the summer, I grew the most successful batch of butternut squash I’ve yet accomplished. One big factor was lucking out with the weather. It wasn’t insanely hot and dry. Another was learning that winter squash does well on a trellis. I learned this a little late, and I already had some lengthy vines. Still, my brother helped me build a teepee-like frame out of fallen branches I could lift the vine onto. The frame proved too short, so I added some PVC pipe, additional sticks, and a hula hoop. It became quite the sculpture and was well-received by the neighborhood mockingbirds and cardinals.
 
Meanwhile, I’m regularly smashing squash bugs and removing egg-laden leaves, and the vines are producing squash. I lost count, but it was definitely more than 15 large ones. I gave many away, others were damaged, but one looked rather nice. On something of an impulse back in June or July, while it was still growing, I announced I was going to enter it in the County Fair.
 
On September 14, along with some of my mom’s fabulous peppers and green beans, the cardigan I made her, and a wooden lamp I made a while back, I did.
 
I don’t have words to describe how surprised I am that my squash won Best in Show of all the adult entries in the craft & produce part of the Fair. Seriously. It took me two or three days to understand that I’d won the Biggest Prize!! It’s so weird!!! And exciting!!
 
The weirdest part is that there were changes in the way the Fair was run this year, and a lot of confusion and controversy between the adult clubs that used to help out in the past but were shut out this year. I don’t understand all that, but what I do know is that no one associated with the fair has reached out to me in any way, shape, or form. In past years, all Best in Show winners for their categories would get their picture in the paper. None of that this year. Now, I’m good. I posted on SM and got my flowers from the people who matter. My questions are really more about how this is crappy PR for the Fair at large. Do better, folks!

​September was a really good month in many ways, much of it I can attribute to feeling better. I also got to see an old friend for a few hours, and my group won trivia one night. However, as the title foreshadowed, it did end with a setback. 

​On the last day of the month, I went to Legacy to cover the 1st track practice. Normally, my colleague is responsible for Tuesdays, but we’d already had delays, and we needed to get started. The practice went well. I ran with them, wanting to demo the pace. I felt a little weird after, but nothing concerning. I often feel weird after working out.
 
I got back to where I was dogsitting, and was cooking dinner, and felt the familiar feelings of a seizure starting. Here, my memory becomes all a jumble. I sat on the floor and worried about turning off the stove because the burner control is in the back. I remember thinking about calling my brother and what message I would leave, and unlocking the front door. Evidently, I did, because he and my dad came, but I was sitting by the door to the garage. One of the dogs was licking my face. The other, a trained therapy dog, was sitting close. (Both are standard poodles, and the one licking me will eventually be a therapy dog, too.)

​The next day, it occurred to me that September 30th is the anniversary of the day I got into the ticks. I also got a call needing to push back my neuro appointment for the 2nd time this fall. I hope she’s okay. My doctor is brilliant. And an immigrant. So is my Nurse Practitioner.
 
Anyway, since then, I’ve been off. Off-off. I think I’ve been having lots of FASs. No heavy machinery for me. If there have been extra typos and wording mistakes, that’s the reason. *sigh* At least it means I sleep well.